In provincial French, According to CSKA, ugly attacked from a distance, could not cope with the “zone”, and therefore lost. After a hurtful defeat from a potential outsider, the group wanted to cry. Not so much for the basketball fans. They say that Ettore Messina didn’t let them out of the hall for a long time, forced them to work on the throw additionally in training, and finally made a demonstrative “flogging” in a passing meeting with St. Petersburg Spartak, during which he drove the base on the parquet (for
details, see Zagday and Materansky’s blog ) Either as a punishment, or for the sake of training, or so that leaders gain confidence. One way or another, it worked.
In fact, the “Benetton” did not have a single chance. What can I say if CSKA came from afar better than from an average distance (59% versus 48%). Trajan Langdon (4 of 6), John Holden (3 of 5), Matjaz Smodis (3 of 5) and David Andersen (2 of 2) threw with such confidence that the ring was the size of a gymnastic hoop.
At the same time, they did not have much free positions. To the honor of Messina, he did not say a word about his own merits, pronouncing the word "interaction" beloved by Russian coaches. “It's just that under my leadership there are very high-class players who are able to decide the outcome of the match themselves,” the Italian modestly said.
His opponent, David Blatt, is fit to accept the army experience. “Twos” teams from Treviso worked perfectly, but because of the six-meter arc, guests were firing more and more on sparrows, smearing 15 of 19 shots. “There is nothing to be done about it,” Blatt shrugged. “CSKA was defending very well, not allowing us to enter the three-second zone and forcing us to attack from afar.” What can you do, David! You just need to learn from Ettore. To train Lyday, Nelson, Zisis, Soranyu on some "Livorno".
And Messina will have to look for ways to train others - young players. Because in this match they disappointed the coach. More precisely, he. The Italian only noted Nikita Kurbanova, Andrei Vorontsevich and Anatoly Kashirov did not appear on the site, but the coach walked along Anton Ponkrashov, not trying to resort to excessive political correctness.
“Anton played like Baryshnikov,” merrily interlacing English words with Russians, Messina showed deep knowledge of the ballet. “As soon as I let Ponkrashov out onto the stage, two“ three ”were thrown through him one after another. Anton, it seems, still doesn’t understand, that here in every match they fight not for life but for death. They throw through him, and he pens like that - oh! Baryshnikov ... "Messina threw up her hands, demonstrating a ballet pas, and continued the unpleasant topic of youth:" Russian guys, of course talented, but have a very weak character. he takes out the class to perform at such a level. He will have to look for playing time in other meetings, but here they obviously failed. I released the same Ponkrashov in a relatively safe situation, at "+12", but soon I was forced to put him on the bench, because I can’t risk the results of the team, did they need to be reminded of the performance against the head coach of the national team? You know, if the players need to talk about such things, it means that they are not all right with their heads. So you need to change the program on the PlayStation. "
Nikolai TSYNKEVICH